Recap

Kouta and Roshuo come face to face at last, and the final battle for possession of the Golden Fruit begins.

Zigg’s thoughts

This episode achieves that rare perfect balance of both setup and payoff. It’s very clearly the springboard into the final stages of the story, yet it’s also a conclusion to some important character arcs (and the characters themselves). It’s both weighty and important in its own right while simultaneously setting the stage for even bigger things to come down the road. In other words, it’s another outstanding half hour of television from a show which is no stranger to them.

Obviously the central story here is Roshuo’s last stand, which is handled very well and allows his character an appropriately complex swansong. I feel Roshuo has drifted more towards the overtly villainous side of the spectrum as the story has progressed, but this episode offers fine redress to that. His conversation with Mai is an excellent, highly atmospheric scene which allows us to feel sympathy towards the character again, re-establishing his motives as essentially pure before everything went to hell. It’s hardly the most complex moral dilemma in history, but good writing, excellent camerawork and a strong performance from Yuumi Shida as Mai all help convince us of the gravity of the situation.

It’s important that we re-establish Rohuo as a well-meaning character because he effectively spends a large part of the episode beating the crap out of our heroes. It’s a great decision, since it really hammers home the power he possesses and the stakes Kouta and Kaito are going to have to tangle with. Aside from his big missile-freezing stunt Roshuo has largely been passive, relying on others to convey the threat of his power, so seeing him back it up is a great payoff to a long build. The fights themselves are excellent, really advancing logically to help establish narrative through action. Kouta starts off totally overwhelmed, but gradually manages to get back into the battle and eventually rise up to Roshuo’s level, albeit only by unleashing his Zenith Arms power, which is of course what Roshuo wanted all along. The special effects in Kamen Rider are never going to rise above ‘totally corny’, but the show makes good use of what it can afford here, with some cool CGI attacks for the Overlord and at least a serviceable stab at the magic vines.

Speaking of serviceable stabs, the writers somehow managed to make the most predictable betrayal in the world feel sudden and unexpected, merely by presenting it differently from normal. Backstabs in Kamen Rider are normally elaborate, massively telegraphed affairs – for example, Mitchy bringing Kouta to an entirely quiet location on his own – so to have this one occur at the climax of a different story angle altogether was entirely unexpected. It’s extraordinarily brutal by kids TV show standards too, with Redue repeatedly stabbing and kicking the helpless Roshuo in what’s honestly a pretty disturbing scene thanks to good camera angles and deranged voice acting. The battle which follows is a classic image-song powered asskicking which is very satisfying, although I’d have liked a better finish – using the stock finisher feels a little underwhelming here.

After such an action packed sequence, the final scene with the dead Roshuo and his briefly resurrected wife is a fine way to close out – dark, tinged with sadness and yet providing appropriate closure to the saga of our on-again-off-again antagonist. What this was all ultimately in service of is clearing the board of distractions. With the Overlords out of the picture, the show is free to focus its final episodes on the characters who really matter – the human ones. Now there’s nothing standing between Kouta, Mitchy, Kaito and the rest. One of them will end up on top. The only question remaining is who?

Random Observations

• Roshuo’s wife looks a LOT like ‘Alternate’ Mai, even down to having the same single red eye. I don’t think they’re meant to be the same character though – key differences such as the necklace are worth noting. Could she be the daughter of the two? Also worth paying attention to is the fact Sagara seems to have met her (and she him) before. The closing visual is incredibly strong.
• There’s a ton of great camerawork in this episode, and credit goes to the episode director for finding ways to shoot the action more dramatically. Mai and Roshuo’s fog-drenched conversation in his ‘lonely castle’ is particularly striking.
• They only appear briefly, but it’s great to get a bit more of Pierre and Jounouchi this episode, and they manage to fight off Mitchy to boot!